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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26015203">The Messenger is Dead</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/antiphrastic/pseuds/antiphrastic'>antiphrastic</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Lucifer (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Blood Loss, Gen, Minor Character Death</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-08-20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-08-20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 05:27:40</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,528</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26015203</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/antiphrastic/pseuds/antiphrastic</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>A damned soul has a message for the devil.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>22</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>The Messenger is Dead</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>His steps echo, bouncing off the unhallowed stone with all the considerable weight of his significance, reverberating through the hall and projecting ahead of himself, announcing his imminent arrival alongside his state of mind: irritated, tinged with determination.</p>
<p>He could have kept his mood better hidden had he flown—the sound of beating wings unable to telegraph as much as emotional nuance.</p>
<p>Also, it would have been faster.</p>
<p>But what was there to rush for these days?</p>
<p>And besides, he would be lying if he said there was no satisfaction to be siphoned from the demons skittering out of his path as he stormed along.</p>
<p>In the millennia of accumulated insults lobbed his way, a great many have been true: narcissist, selfish, self-centered, inconsiderate, over-dramatic catastrophizing impulsive hedonist (he’d had some time on his hands lately to parse the well-earned accusations from the chaff).</p>
<p>But a liar?</p>
<p>Lucifer is not—nor has he ever been—a liar.</p>
<p>He has wielded the truth both as a weapon that cuts and as a cloak which obscures. Never a liar. But being truthful is not the same as being honest, and it is a lesson Lucifer has to review with frustrating regularity. He is working on it.</p>
<p>Had been working on it.</p>
<p>Moving along.</p>
<p>He crosses the threshold of the cell where Hirgl waits with the quiet signs of demon anxiety that Lucifer has been working to sow: a cautiously relaxed posture, half-lidded eyes observing the surroundings, mouth open and ready to hiss or to smile as would be appropriate. Practiced nonchalance which evidences a desire to if not please Lucifer, to at least not attract his ire.</p>
<p>“New arrival said he had a message for you,” Hirgl says of the apparently empty cell.</p>
<p>“Which is what loads of new arrivals say, obviously,” he rushes to add, hoping to keep the irritated cant of Lucifer’s head from blossoming into something stronger when he is the only outlet in the room at which that something stronger could be directed. “So I threw him into his loop and well. He uhhh. He has a message for you.”</p>
<p>Lucifer takes a moment to take stock of Hirgl, not for any particular reason stronger than wanting Hirgl to squirm under the scrutiny, before turning his head to the door set in wall opposite the entrance. The Lord of Hell has been dealing with a lot of his own guilt recently, and the last time he’d entered a hell loop with a guilty conscience he’d wasted precious time repeatedly murdering his brother. He’d been Actually Dead at the time, though, so it shouldn’t have any bearing on the here and now. More recently than that, he’d slipped in and taken Abel, and there’d been no negative repercussions from that action.</p>
<p>Well. Yes, there had been.</p>
<p>There’d been no negative repercussions of the Lucifer Gets Trapped In His Personal Hell variety, which is the incredibly specific variety of repercussions he’s currently on the lookout for. He mentally shrugs, not wishing to cloud his mind with thoughts of Eve’s horrible children, and approaches the new arrival’s door, places his fingertips of his left hand upon it.</p>
<p>“Name?” he asks, turning his head towards his shoulder without moving far enough to look over it.</p>
<p>“Uh, it’s Hirgl, my king.”</p>
<p>Lucifer’s eyes flash with hellfire, but his back is to Hirgl, so it goes unnoticed.</p>
<p>The growl that claws from Lucifer’s throat is much more obvious.</p>
<p>“The arrival’s name, you moronic wretch.”</p>
<p>“Ah,” Hirgl smartly replies, “Doctor Chadwick Ellory Michelsen. Responsible for fourteen murders, countless acts of brutal cruelty, repeated and consciously unethical behaviour by even his own standards, and multiple parking violations, one of which prevented an emergency vehicle reaching its destination in time.”</p>
<p>He presses his hand forward, the door slides open smoothly, and the Devil steps into the loop—</p>
<p>—and into Los Angeles.</p>
<p>He barely registers Hirgl scrambling past him, but he follows the demon regardless.</p>
<p>Not because he was beckoned, that would be absurd.</p>
<p>Because he is the Lord of Hell, and he bloody well knows how to sniff out the Damned.</p>
<p>“We ignored him of course, when he said he wanted to see you. Can’t have you coming down to greet every damned soul that hurtles through the blackened gates. So I threw him into his loop, and Ezikar got to work but well….”</p>
<p>It’s just as well Hirgl drifts off when he does, because Lucifer is no longer listening, and the demon can save his breath for now. If breath is a thing demons need to concern themselves with saving. Lucifer’s never asked. He’s not going to ask now. Or later, honestly.</p>
<p>Doctor Chadwick Ellory Michelsen’s personal hell takes place at dusk, in the cluttered alley between a parking structure and a parking lot, and the only actor on the scene—besides the doctor, who is dreadfully wounded and immobile, if the amount of blood seeping into the pavement where he’s collapsed is any indication—is a familiar form, standing over a barrel fire, tearing pages from a book.</p>
<p>“Oh, wow. I hope that wasn’t important,” the demon impersonating Chloe Decker says in a tone of mock concern. A tone he is well familiar with, and for one painful moment, he is filled with a longing he has not been permitting himself to feel. </p>
<p>But this was only Ezikar, doing her job, and under the sarcasm lies a vein of venom that the real detective always lacked. </p>
<p>This isn't real, in more ways than one: punishment loops are fictions themselves, crafted from the fears of the damned. There is no need for a fidelity to the truth when dealing in torment—such a thing would be at cross-purposes to the punishment, in fact.</p>
<p>“What is the meaning of this?” he asks through clenched teeth. The air shakes as though he has roared, reacting to his temper rather than his timbre. Doctor Chad can’t help but look his way, and struggles vainly to recoil from the imposing form with eyes like burning coals and flesh that glows with the heat of the hellfire coiling beneath its surface.</p>
<p>“I asked you a question, murderer.” Lucifer lifts the corners of his mouth in a grotesque mockery of a smile. “Are you making me wait for an answer?”</p>
<p>Doctor Chad stares, opens and closes his mouth a few times without producing sounds, and continues to gawp.</p>
<p>With a heavy, malicious sigh, Lucifer crouches before the dead man, near enough to be imposing and far enough to keep his shoes out of the pooling blood.</p>
<p>“Very well, I can see the questions swimming in your repulsive little mind. I can indulge in some tit for tat.” His smile softens only enough to not appear predatory, but it makes the invitation clear.</p>
<p>“Am…” Chad looks from Lucifer, to Hirgl, to Not Chloe Decker, and back again. “Am I in….”</p>
<p>“In Hell? Yes. Murderer. That is, generally speaking, where murderers go after they shuffle off the mortal coil from what looks to be, in this case, the consequences of an embarrassing medical mishap. There’s always exceptions, of course. But, well. You aren't one. Next question?” It was not a question.</p>
<p>Doctor Chad gulps, looks at the blood on his hands, takes note of the pain in his thigh from where stitches popped and an artery ruptured, bleeding profusely but not in any apparent rush to kill him just yet. </p>
<p>Because he's already dead. </p>
<p>Has he gulped yet?</p>
<p>Doctor Chad gulps.</p>
<p>“Then you’re—”</p>
<p>“The Devil, Beelzebub, God’s brightest angel cast from Heaven to become King and Lord Torturer of Hell. You humans need new bloody questions, this F.A.Q. has gotten tiring. Hirgl! Remember that—an admissions package for the newly damned with answers to all their inane questions so we can skip this dreadful dance going forward.”</p>
<p>“…Yes, my Lord. An… admissions package for damned souls.” Hirgl exchanges a perplexed glance with Ezikar who is still impersonating the detective, tearing pages from a book and dropping them into the barrel fire, presumably for her own edification since the good—well terrible—doctor is too preoccupied to enjoy the show.</p>
<p>“I have a message for you.” Doctor Chad interrupts. Is it interrupting if noone is speaking? It feels like an interruption, with the weight of the Lucifer’s silence pressing down upon him. It is an interruption. Doctor Chad interrupted.</p>
<p>And it draws Lucifer’s attention back to the moment.</p>
<p>“Yes, I heard. I am awash with curiousity,” Lucifer puts his full attention back on the doctor, who manages to shrink further under his gaze. “A message from whom?”</p>
<p>Despite the certainty he is in Hell, and therefore this body is not real, because this body is already dead, he is unable to move. The wound may not be real, but he is all too familiar with how the body reacts when it loses half its volume of blood, and it seems he is going through the process regardless of other, more relevant facts. Unable to muster any strength to move his arms, he points instead with his eyes at the demons standing behind the Lord of Hell.</p>
<p>At Ezikar.</p>
<p>“From the detective.”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>I never got around to writing the season 5 fic I outlined in a fit of inspiration last summer, but this would have been Lucifer's reintroduction to the story, as the final scene of the first chapter.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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